Supporting communities

The philosophy behind housebuilder Wilson Connolly’s new brand, The Lifebuilding Company, is simple: to create friendly new neighbourhoods with beautiful homes. To communicate this ethos in its corporate identity, the company has enlisted the help of Edinburgh design group Tayburn.

The core of the identity is an abstract, green fern, which epitomises the unfolding of new life and with it, new homes, says Tayburn creative director Bryan Hook. The icon mirrors the organic growth of the neighbourhoods ‘constructed’ by The Lifebuilding Company, as well as its contemporary character, he adds.

‘We didn’t want to create a new brand for the existing, slightly sterile home construction marketplace,’ says Hook, ‘but invent a new sector. As a result, the identity is consumer-driven and friendly.’

The signature fern grows out of the word ‘life’ and forms a tendril which creates the letter ‘e’ of ‘The’. The identity is featured in two contrasting shades of green.

According to Hook, research on the housebuilding sector prior to the branding project was damning. It reveals that people are reluctant to buy into a purpose-built neighbourhood with no character, rather than an established area they know and trust.

The identity for the Lifebuilding Company therefore has to shed this image and capture consumers’ imagination and let them know they are buying into a caring, communal environment ‘owned by the people’, says Hook.